


we stuck like glue

by ayodelle



Category: Glee
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Swimming Pools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1292041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayodelle/pseuds/ayodelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Blaine meet at a swimming pool as kids, and then they seemingly can’t get rid of it. In other words, eight years in life, two boys, one pool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we stuck like glue

The first time Blaine visits the Lima swimming pool, he's the only boy there. It's a Sunday and his mom had promised him the day before that she would take him, but when she fell asleep after lunch he didn't have the heart to wake her. His dad wasn’t home.

It's almost eight in the evening and he swims laps like he was taught in preschool while his mom sits in a lounge chair by the pool and a small group of teenage girls keeps practicing synchronized swimming in the far left corner.

He's barely seven but brave nonetheless. He bids goodbye to the imaginary friends he kept playing Marco Polo with and swims towards the group, promptly taking in their moves and copying them.

Soon the girls notice him, and they smile, and he's not playing alone anymore.

 

\---

 

When he's nine, most of the friends he had made on the synchronized swimming team have either graduated or moved away. It's a Monday but the school has just ended the week prior, so he can go for a swim at any point of the week, any part of the day.

It's barely twelve but he's careful as he steps into the familiar embrace of the water, the smell of chlorine filling his nostrils. He swims in a circle, up and down, up and down, tries to do a handstand and succeeds, years of watching the team practice leaving a mark on him. He's just about to shatter his record of 27 seconds underwater when an unfamiliar pair of feet enters his blurred vision.

The boy is short and scrawny, his brown bangs clinging to his forehead. When Blaine's head bobs up from the water, the boy gives him a clipped smile and points to his diving glasses.

"I tried to get my dad to buy me ones like yours, but he said they're for older boys only," he says with a scowl, but his face brightens almost immediately. "Could I borrow yours for a while?"

Blaine says yes, and he smiles, and by the end of the day they both know how to do handstands underwater.

 

\---

 

When he's thirteen Kurt's his best friend and they no longer have to share the same pair of diving glasses. It's a Thursday and their parents trust them enough to let them go to the swimming pool alone.

It's twelve and it's the week after Christmas so Kurt jokes about how he's only going swimming to lose the holiday fat. They both know it's not true, though, because they're at the pool almost every week.

Blaine keeps humming a song under his breath, the one from the finale of _Dirty Dancing_. He's practicing his backstroke technique while Kurt's doing butterfly and whenever they swim by each other, Blaine registers a small pause in Kurt's movements, his eyes following Blaine.

"Do you want to try and do _the_ lift?" Kurt asks uncertainly when it's fifteen minutes to the end of their session. Blaine hesitates for a second, not sure if either of them is strong enough to hold the other's weight. But logistics get thrown aside quickly and he nods, grinning.

Kurt's the one to jump, Blaine fails to catch him properly, and when they're toweling their hair dry a quarter of an hour later Kurt's deliberately not looking at Blaine, but quietly smiling to himself, and Blaine's flushed from head to toe.

 

\---

 

When he's sixteen he has to mentally convince himself to go to the swimming pool for the first time in ages. On Monday, he and Kurt decided to go swimming by the end of the week, but now it’s Friday and Blaine doesn't know if the plan still stands.

It's six and he has already made his homework, helped his mom with grocery shopping, reorganized his music library and bow-tie collection, and fidgeted in the locker room for four minutes and thirty seconds. He's excited but scared but mostly excited and his hands keep playing with the swimming trunks' cord.

He sees Kurt in the back of the pool immediately and he feels relieved at first, then his excitement skyrockets, along with his nerves. In his next few breaths the speech he has prepared gets revised and rewritten with every inhale and exhale, but in the end Kurt just spots him and swims towards him and _leans_ towards him -- much like Blaine had earlier that day -- and that's that.

The kiss is way too short for his liking but Kurt grabs his hand afterwards and tugs him through the water. "Come on, I'll show you a new yoga move Mercedes has taught me."

They don't swim much that day, but hold hands almost the entire time, and their third kiss is longer and sweeter, and better than anything Blaine's imagination could come up with in three years.

 

\---

 

When he's seventeen he no longer spends the entire hour at the swimming pool in the water. It's a Saturday and the pool is full of people, toddlers and seniors alike.

It’s half past one and he and Kurt talk and laugh and swim around for a while, but when several hostile glares get aimed in their direction, they decide to cut their session short.

When they get to the changing rooms Blaine grabs the waistband of Kurt's pants instead and drags him to the bathroom and the nearest toilet stall. The floor is slippery and the air is humid and smells like the pool water but their urge to rebel is far stronger than any discomfort and the whole affair is quick, over almost too soon.

They leave the building giggling and holding hands and Kurt spends a minute glaring at Blaine's profile, hastily trying to cover up a hickey.

 

\---

 

When he’s nineteen, he doesn't even make it to the swimming pool. It’s a Wednesday and the Prius gets parked in front of the hall and neither he, nor Kurt, make an attempt to actually go swimming.

It’s almost nine and the sun has set hours ago so they only see each other thanks to the street lamp by the car. It’s between rounds four and five that he looks up from where his head is nestled on Kurt’s shoulder and sees him looking back. And he know it will be alright.

“Wanna go again?” Kurt closes his eyes before asking, “I mean, we’re just friends so it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Purely brofessional,” Blaine jokes and Kurt snickers before pulling him down.

Blaine’s phone starts ringing after they’re finished, _Sam_ , and it turns out round five is the last for the day but that doesn’t matter because they have the rest of the week still.

 

\---

 

When he's twenty-one it's the first time he got his mom to come swim with him since he was a kid. It's a Sunday, Kurt's also there, as are Burt and Carole, and Blaine's dad claimed that he would get there, too, as soon as his meeting was over.

It's eleven in the morning and the adults get stuck in the shallow end of the pool, caught in avid conversation, and meanwhile he chases Kurt to the other end, dodging the splashes of water thrown his way, his technique the very definition of freestyle.

He corners Kurt in the deepest part of the pool where there's no one around and pecks him on the nose. After years of imitating synchronized swimming, doing laps, and racing Kurt, it feels odd to recline by the edge, but he does so anyway. He closes his eyes for a second, the last sight he sees his mom laughing at some joke, and the next Kurt's hand, pointing at him.

"It feels so naked without the ring," he confesses, swimming into Blaine's field of vision. "Like I've forgotten to put on a shirt in the morning."

Blaine shrugs, smirks. "Well, you've forgotten to put on a shirt now." He gropes at Kurt uselessly as they both sink into the water, flailing their hands around and trying to hold their laughter in to prevent the burn of it hitting the inside of their noses.

Blaine's dad arrives in the middle of the hour and they smile at each other and when Blaine asks him whether he would like to have a speech at the wedding, he says yes.

 

\--

  
The next time he visits the Lima swimming pool he’s twenty-five and he has a ring of his own and he’s happy, he really, _really_ is. 

**Author's Note:**

> Too many run-ons, too little time. This feels like the most pretentious thing I’ve ever written but I haven’t read any best friends turned lovers fic, aka my most favorite trope of all, in a while, so I needed to get it out of my system.


End file.
